NCAA hits ASU with baseball sanctions

Sun Devils suspended from 2011 postseason

by Jeff Metcalfe - Dec. 16, 2010 12:00 AMThe Arizona Republic

The NCAA said Wednesday that Arizona State University's athletics department is guilty of not properly monitoring its baseball program; as a result, the Sun Devils will be banned from postseason-baseball play in 2011.

Recruiting improprieties, coaching practices and overpaying athletes for work with a non-profit program showed the university's athletics department had a "lack of institutional control," one of the most serious failures in the eyes of the NCAA, the country's governing body for college athletics.

The organization criticized former baseball coach Pat Murphy for a "cavalier attitude" toward NCAA regulations, but it cleared him of earlier accusations of unethical conduct.

Wednesday was the second time in five years that the NCAA had found a lack of institutional control at ASU's athletics department.

The case was also the ninth major infraction assessed against ASU since 1953 - the most among all Division I institutions. That point was stressed by the NCAA's Infractions Committee in a 55-page report that laid out punishments for the infractions.

Murphy was fired by ASU in November 2009, a day after the NCAA's original charges were received.

The penalty bars Murphy from making recruiting phone calls for one year, through Dec. 14, 2011, if he is hired by another NCAA school.

"The former head coach's lack of oversight and/or disregard of NCAA legislation in each of the areas cited was a material failing," the committee said.

Still, Murphy and several former ASU assistant coaches and employees were cleared of allegations made earlier by NCAA investigators: that they had violated ethics rules by impeding investigation of the impermissible phone calls.

Murphy, whose contract with ASU was terminated without cause, is signed to manage a Eugene, Ore.-based Class A minor-league team in the San Diego Padres organization in 2011. Murphy won four Pac-10 titles and four College World Series appearances with ASU.

On Wednesday, he said the findings showed he was not solely responsible for problems at ASU.

"My penalty of one-year recruiting-call restrictions indicates the NCAA realized that I was not the crux of the problem," he said in an e-mail. "I do accept responsibility for not being well-versed on some rules and interpretations."

He added, "There is no happiness in seeing the program sanctioned."

Other than clearing Murphy of ethical violations, the Infractions Committee largely upheld allegations laid out in November. ASU acknowledged in April that two were major violations:

- Coaches made more recruiting phone calls than rules allow.

- The team illegally recruited former player Kiel Roling.

Other infractions, ASU had told the NCAA, were "secondary in nature." But the Infractions Committee on Wednesday deemed them to be "major violations":

- The team used team managers to fill roles that should have been filled by coaches.

- The team allowed outside consultants to train athletes, creating an unfair benefit.

- The department allowed athletes to be overpaid for work with Murphy's non-profit Sandlot youth-baseball program.

The report blamed the violations both on Murphy's failure to create an atmosphere of compliance with the rules and on the athletic department's lack of control.

In addition to the postseason ban, the NCAA will impose other sanctions.

ASU baseball was also placed on three years' probation. It also will be subject to repeat-violator penalties if it commits other major violations in the next five years.

Finally, the NCAA accepted ASU's self-imposed penalties.

Before the results of the investigation, ASU vacated 44 of 49 wins and its Pacific-10 Conference title from 2007, cut two scholarships no later than the 2011-12 academic year and restricted recruiting.

"We disagree with some of the findings. We think the postseason ban is excessive," said Virgil Renzulli, ASU vice president of public affairs. He said ASU will decide by next month whether to appeal to the Infractions Appeals Committee, which then will have 120 days to rule on the case.

Paul Dee, Infractions Committee chairman, said recruiting deemed illegal helped ASU reach the 2007 College World Series, so that a 2011 postseason ban is an "appropriate penalty." He added that any leeway ASU deserved for cooperating with the investigation is offset because "we believe we needed to have penalties to indicate they were repeat offenders."

ASU began an internal investigation of the baseball program in January 2008 by hiring an outside firm to look into allegations by a former manager. Those findings went to the Pac-10 and eventually to the NCAA with ASU along the way firing Murphy.

"What wasn't clear (in the NCAA report) was we self-reported and investigated this and self-imposed sanctions," Renzulli said.

ASU officials had argued that they educated and monitored the baseball staff, but the NCAA was not convinced.

Renzulli said, "We admit there were problems and could have been tighter control. But a vast number of these are sloppy record keeping. We think we had good controls, and they're better now."

He said the athletic-compliance department now is reporting to Jose Cardenas, ASU senior vice president and legal counsel. He also said that ASU President Michael Crow remains in support of Lisa Love, vice president of athletics, and that "we're very happy with the current direction of the baseball program" under second-year coach Tim Esmay.

The Infractions Committee credited Esmay for eliminating its Devil-to-Devil program in which players were asked to give up some or all of their scholarship aid at midsemester so it could be used by incoming players, including Roling.